In one corner, a guy is using an airbrush on a huge canvas to paint graffiti-style art. Against a window, a girl sits at a table behind a sewing machine, attaching a giant piece of silvery plastic to fake leopard fur. Next to her, a metal clothes rack holds several finished garments that look like costumes from the Hunger Games.

A dozen couches are scattered around the space, a person draped across each one, sleeping or meditating or whatever. We weave our way through the obstacle course towards a semi-circle fortress of desks piled with computers and screens and a ton of crap like bobblehead dolls, Lego Millennium Falcons and junk food wrappers. The wall behind it is hung with a V for Vendetta poster featuring the creepy “Anonymous” mask and a Matrix poster. Life-sized cardboard figures of Neo and Trinity guard the setup on either side. And in the middle of it all sits a girl wearing chunky headphones over an orange knit cap, typing into a keyboard in front of an old-style box computer screen.

“Livia,” calls Siaka.

She keeps typing.

We walk right up. Siaka taps her on the shoulder.

She jumps up, rips off her headphones, and turns to face us, looking well and truly pissed off. Black braids drape down past her shoulders. Her skin is a shade lighter than Siaka’s and her eyes catlike without the help of liquid liner. She’s the classical example of “gorgeous but trying hard not to be.”

“Dude!” she yells at Siaka. “Do not do that. Ever.”

“I called your name, but you didn’t hear me,” Siaka says, chuckling.

She turns to me, and her scowl deepens. “Who the hell is this,” she asks, looking at me but addressing Siaka.

“This is Louis. I’m working with him on that project you’re helping me with.”

She glares up at Siaka, who’s about a foot taller than her. “What did I say about bringing people here? No visitors. None. Ever.”

“Yeah, well, Louis’s my work partner, so that’s different.”

“No. Not different. He is a person, right? And I told you not to bring people here. Dude, I’ve got so much illegal shit on this computer, I could go to jail for the rest of my lifetime... and yours.”

“Livia, if you’re so concerned about secrecy, why are you working in an open-plan squat with a ton of other people?”

“Okay, first of all, I told you not to call me that. My name is Liv.”

Siaka is unfazed. “I’ve called you Livia since you were a baby.”

He turns to me. “Our moms are sisters.” I must look confused because he specifies, “My dad’s white, hers is Vietnamese.”

“Do you really need to do that?” she says, scowling at Siaka. “I’m sure this rando guy doesn’t need our family tree explained in detail to figure out why we look nothing alike.”